


down to earth

by Dandybear



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Speculation, finale fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 13:52:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6613174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandybear/pseuds/Dandybear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex saves her sister from space death and Kara gets a surprise guest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	down to earth

**Author's Note:**

> There's nothing really exciting about this, I just got really hype over that finale. J'onn is best dad. I love him.

The pod’s instructions are in Kryptonian and Alex thanks Kara for teaching her how to read it.

 

“Alex!” Lucy yips.

 

“Kara’s going to-- I can’t.”

 

Words don’t come easily. Adrenaline makes her hands shake and her teeth chatter. The fear instinct is working against her. There’s only one thing that matters. It pounds against her skull and pulse.

 

Save Kara.

 

At age fifteen, her core programming was changed from: Be The Best, to Keep Kara Safe. To ignore her prime directive would be to live in a life without meaning.

 

Kara asked her to.

 

She can’t do that. Life without Kara is like life without sunlight.

 

Alex runs her fingers along the screen, flipping the core accelerator and adjusting the seat to accommodate two bodies.

 

It better be fast enough.

 

She ignores the yells of the others as she turns the engine on.

 

The ride is surprisingly smooth for how fast it’s going. A sleek, silver bullet zipping up, up, and away.

 

Her fingers still glide along the keys. This ship has a bio-link with Kara. Martian technology, actually.  It targets her. Leaving the atmosphere, punching a hole in the sky.

 

A human can survive in space with a lung ful of air for about a minute. Kryptonians are built of sturdier stuff, but can only last for seven minutes at most.

 

Not that they’ve tried it out, it’s theoretical information obtained from Alura’s hologram.

 

There she is. Drifting as if asleep.  The ship doesn’t need to be told to open its hatch. Alex catches Kara by the arm and pulls her as hard as she can.

 

Then she’s there, dead weight pinning Alex against the seat of the cockpit. That and the zero gravity knock the air out of her.

 

But Kara is still warm. Alex’s heart is beating to fast to get a pulse. The hatch closes and the ship dips in its course.

 

Alex reaches around Kara to program the return flight. The necklace she’s wearing feels less like it’s pulling her down. Her vision stops blurring and her pulse slows.

 

Kara’s in her arms again. Safe.

 

Kara gasps slightly, eyelids fluttering and eyes opening before collapsing again.

 

“You scared me to death you big, beautiful idiot.” Alex says.

 

Kara doesn’t say anything, but her head lolls onto Alex’s shoulder. Alex presses her lips to Kara’s cheek. It’s softs, despite a few ice crystals having frozen tears to her skin.

 

The blackness of space fades into the blue of the atmosphere and Alex starts at a knock on the ship’s window. J’onn waves at her, mouth falling open at the sight of Kara.

 

She motions that she’ll see him back at base. He signs, ‘I love you’.

 

‘Love you too, Pops.’ She thinks at him.

 

He smiles.

 

A group of agents leap out of the way of the spaceship zipping down the halls back toward the control room. Lucy Lane is on her knees with her forehead pressed into the floor. She looks up with confusion. Then elation.

 

“Oh my god, you’re alive and I don’t have to explain a missing space ship to the board!” Lucy says.

 

Alex shoots her a thumbs up, still trying to maneuver getting her massive Kryptonian seatbelt off without hitting Kara’s head.

 

Luckily, J’onn arrives right on time to pick Kara up like a sleepy toddler and allow Alex some breathing room.

 

Vasquez offers her a hand out of the pod. Alex takes it and staggers on her landing. The adrenaline draining from her system has her bow-legged.

 

Lucy holds her hands out to help with steadying.

 

Max, useless ass he is, just stands there and starts clapping.

 

“Agent Danvers, snapping into action and saving our hero from heroic sacrifice. You’re the real MVP here.”

 

“Max, if you don’t shut up I will punch you in the dick.” Alex says before coughing.

 

Vasquez leaves her with Lucy and returns with a bottle of water for her parched throat. She flips Max the bird while chugging.

 

“I was just trying to be grateful of your heroic act.” He says, feigning good humour.

 

“Well, it wasn’t for you.”

 

Alex is proud that she can storm off despite feeling like she’s going to vomit. She clutches the wall all the way to the med bay.

 

J’onn is waiting there, brushing Kara’s golden hair away from her face and check her pupil dilation. 

 

“It’s likely just fatigue and oxygen loss. She should be fine.” He says.

 

Alex headbutts his chest and he wraps his arms around her. He’s humming and it rumbles against her skull.

 

“She was planning on dying.” Alex says, voice thick with tears.

 

“She had come to terms with it, but it was not her intention.” He says.

 

“You knew?” She looks up at him.

 

“Kara said her goodbyes to everyone.”

 

“She didn’t say ‘goodbye’ to me, not until the very end.” She can’t breathe.

 

J’onn hugs her closer, “Kara said she couldn’t say ‘farewell’ to you. She wouldn’t be able to leave.”

 

That makes Alex cry harder. J’onn rubs slow circles on her back and clicks comfortingly. The sobs subside quicker than she expected. She swipes her thumbs under her eyes, stepping away from J’onn.

 

His eyes are glossy with tears as well. That’s comforting. He’s already been through much pain. She’s glad she spared him losing another child.

 

“You did good, Alex.” He says, gripping her shoulder.

 

“Thank you, Sir.”

 

“I’m so very proud of you.” He kisses the side of her head.

 

Alex runs her thumb over his knuckles and nods. Words escape her.

 

Instead she walks to Kara, the sleeping beauty. Her lips are parted, air passing between them. Her forehead is smooth, so unlike the cute scrunched up face she makes when she’s sleeping. 

 

Alex is overwhelmed by the urge to kiss her sister. She settles for a dry press of lips to Kara’s temple.

 

“My hero.” She whispers against Kara’s skull.

 

After a few minutes, J’onn excuses himself to see if there’s any damage in need of repair. Mostly, she knows he wants to give her and Kara some privacy.

 

Alex collapses onto a stool. She stares into space for a few minutes before pulling up any satellite feed on the corpse of Fort Rozz currently floating in orbit of Earth.

 

The pendant of the necklace is warm as she rolls it against her lips. It’s a habit Kara had as a child, and Alex can’t help but mirror it in search of an indirect kiss.

 

She’s focused on work, but she can hear Kara stir. She’s always so quiet, but it’s like the air around her shifts.

 

Alex turns to see the befuddled realization that yes, Kara is back on Earth and alive.

 

“What happened?” Kara says, wetting her lips.

 

Alex stands, helping Kara sit up, touching her, feeling that she’s there and warm and alive.

 

“You saved Earth and I saved you. With your pod. You’re not the only badass in the family.”

 

She makes a joke about Alura appreciating her flying skills. Like it wasn’t white knuckled terror getting the ship to fly without crashing. Or that the autopilot did all the work and Alex was just hoping a forty year old spaceship worked better than the car she had in college.

 

The necklace feels hot in her clammy hands. Kara accepts it back, sighing at the weight returning, a gentle reminder, to her chest.

 

“Now, there are a lot of people out there that want to say ‘Thank you’.” Alex adds.

 

She’s doing a pretty good job of keeping it together, considering all she wants to do in this moment is crawl into Kara’s lap and cry for about sixteen hours.

 

Kara smiles up at her, “You always save me.”

 

Alex nods, then bursts out laugh-crying.

 

“Kara, I don’t always save you. I just fuck up a lot and then J’onn saves me.”

 

She can hear Kara’s searching hesitance in the static between them.

 

“Hey, you didn’t heck up when it really mattered.” Kara says, pulling at Alex’s wrists.

 

Alex sobs and Kara pulls her in for a hug.  Alex’s hands are claws, pulling Kara closer. She buries her face in Kara’s neck inhaling the mixture of her smell and ozone.

 

“Don’t ever scare me like that again.” Alex says, nose to Kara’s pulse.

 

Kara’s combing her fingers through Alex’s hair.

 

“I can’t promise that.” Kara whispers.

 

“You made me promise to move on and love someone other than you, I think you can promise to limit your number of suicide missions.”

 

Kara sighs, her nails bite into Alex’s back and she leans into the sensation instead of flinching away. Kara’s looking down at her through her eyelashes, looking like Atlas. Contemplative, weary, and ancient.

 

“Some day you might not find it such a hard promise to keep.”  Kara says gently, “Marriage, kids, Alex that’s not something I see in my future.”

 

“Do you know how little all that means to me in comparison to you?” Alex leans back, “Kara, the only white picket fence ending I want involves your paintings on the walls and you mug in the sink next to mine.”

 

The moment between them is so delicate it feels brittle. Air is having a hard time escaping or entering Alex’s chest. She’s just revealed her whole hand, laid everything on the table.

 

The realization dawns on Kara and grabs Alex’s face with the meat of her thumbs.

 

“Alex, do you mean..?”

 

“Yeah. Forget it. I won’t let it change anything.”

 

Tears are running freely down her cheeks again, she’s going to need another glass of water.

 

Kara’s lips are velvety against the wet tracks on her cheeks. Alex flinches. This really is adding insult to injury. She tries to pull her head away, but Kara tips her chin up and catches her on the mouth.

 

Alex sighs through her nose. It’s comforting, skin on skin. Not the first time they’ve kissed. A game of spin the bottle with rattling breath and fumbling fingers.  Kara’s eighteenth birthday, pressing her into the wood of the house with the stars and their mother’s window above.

 

It’s never been more than exploration, curiousity boldly going where the hormones take them.

 

This kiss is different. A reassurance. Alex pulls back and presses her forehead to Kara’s.

 

“I love you so much.” She still has a hard time breathing around the sentence.

 

“I love you, Alex. We’ll put a pin in this for now, because people are waiting, but this isn’t a rejection, okay?” Kara says.

 

Alex nods against the hand cupping her chin.

 

“Okay, let’s go face the music.” Kara says, puffing her chest out.

 

&&

 

“To family, love bonds us all.” Kara says.

 

It’s different than the motto of the House of El. It fits better. None of the people in this room are of her blood, but she loves each and every one. She loves the gap in J’onn’s smile at that, and the hearty rumble of approval from James.

 

Then a streak of fire goes across the sky and she and J’onn are suiting up before they can tuck in. She’s so glad she snuck out for a cheeseburger earlier. As it is, she’s running on fumes.

 

It’s a pod, a Kryptonian pod. Exact make and model as hers, so it can’t be a new development. Did someone else survive? Was someone else lost? She’s reaching for it and J’onn is calling to her for caution. He’s such a dad.

 

Like Kal-El before her, she tears the front off and stares down at the small figure. Blonde hair, blue eyes, staring up at her through her bangs.

 

“This is impossible. How?” Kara looks at J’onn.

 

She’s looking back in time, a smaller version of herself. It has to be some kind of trick. It screams Maxwell Lord’s brand of bullshit.

 

At the same time, Kara sees the same fear and weariness in this child’s eyes that she knows so well in the mirror.

 

Young Kara points to her chest. Her voice is thick with sleep. Kryptonian language is quick and light, hopping over syllables and stressing every other vowel. It’s pure coming from this child’s mouth, unlike Kara’s which is rusty with lack of use.

 

[You are of the House of El?] The child says.

 

[Yes, actually, I’m you.] Kara says.

 

Young Kara looks just as confused as Kara feels.

 

She looks at Hank for help, but he’s already besotted at the sight of a younger version. He’s checking the child for injuries, brow more wrinkled than usual.

 

“I cannot read Kryptonian minds, but she has the same emotional energy signature as you.” He says.

 

“What’s my emotional energy signature?” Kara says.

 

“It’s kind of like a piccolo  with the occasional crash of cymbals. Or like a butterfly flapping peacefully in the middle of a hurricane.”

 

“Ah. Okay.” Kara doesn’t know how to process that right now, so it’s going on the back burner with a bunch of other stuff.

 

She gets her phone out and paces while calling Clark. She wishes there was a Barry Allen in this world, because she’ll bet it anything that this is some multiverse nonsense.

 

“What’s up Big Damn Hero?” Clark answers on the first ring.

 

“Okay, so, a pod carrying a Kryptonian arrived on Earth.”

 

She can hear the change in his breathing, how he’s already shucking off his tie.

 

“Oh. Oh wow, Kara that’s huge.” Clark says.

 

“Let me finish. It’s another me.”

 

“What?”

 

“The pod. Is carrying. Kara Zor-El. But small again.” Kara says.

 

Clark is quiet on the other end of the phone.

 

“What should I do?” Kara says.

 

“Last time this happened, I informed the DEO and brought her to live with the Danvers. I stand by that advice. We can check out if her story checks out in the morning. In the meantime, let’s hope she doesn’t murder anyone or enslave humanity while we sleep.”

 

“Thanks Clark, that makes me feel so much better.” She grimaces.

 

“If you need me I can be there in two shakes. Otherwise, I’m still beat from Myriad and you are too. This can wait until morning, Cous. I have some deep dish and a warm bed with my name on it.” Clark sighs.

 

“That’s fair. Have a good night. Love you.” Kara says.

 

She can hear her own exhaustion as she hangs up the call. Next she tries Alex. She picks up on the third ring.

 

“Kara, are you okay?” Her voice is slightly hysterical. 

 

Considering their last phone call, Kara doesn’t blame her.

 

“Yeah. I’m okay. The meteor. It was a Kryptonian Pod. My ship actually. You know that thing we were talking about earlier with the raising kids? Well, Magic 8 Ball says it’s in our very near future. Or, like, the present.”

 

Kara turns back to see that J’onn has Little Kara sitting on his shoulders and he’s explaining something to her in fragmented Kryptonian.

  
Oh boy.


End file.
